Being a Biker means accepting the fact that riding two wheels is more dangerous than driving four wheels. It's just the way it is, and this is the reason I am not longer on 2 wheels. But I believe this particular Blog is still important, which is why I have updated it.
There are ways to be safer on the road; extra training like BikeSafe Courses, is a very good way. Taking Advanced Training is another. But one of the accepted techniques, received wisdom if you like, is that by having your headlight on during day-light hours, makes you more visible and hence, safer.I want to challenge this particular thinking because I believe, in some circumstances, it makes the situation worse.
When I started riding a Motorbike in the mid-1960's, the issue of having your headlight on during the day never arose; you didn't have it on. Nobody did.
Then there was a time when you rode with your headlight on but covered with an orange diffuser. This was the beginning of the move towards full headlights during the day. It wasn't questioned because, of course, having your headlight on means you are more visible and so, more likely to be seen, and so.... safer.
However, over the last 2 years, I have been riding a Honda Deauville, and have found that there seems to have been a rise in the number of drivers who pull out on me, particularly, from side-roads. The scale of the problem was that, on a eight miles commute to work (16 miles round) there was a 100% certainty that at least one driver would pull out on me on each leg of the trip journey. When I say 'pull out' I mean a potential collision situation, not a mere nuisance.
This came to a head in April 2010, when a woman in a white convertible pulled out on me, at a bad junction, when I was about 20 feet away. Because it was a bad junction I was going cautiously. So when this half-blind Muppet pulls out, I braked and sounded the horn. She is, by now, completely across my side of the carriageway. At the sound of the horn she visibly jumped and her eyes widen in shock as though I had been suddenly beamed down from the Enterprise. What was even more disturbing was that all the while she had been looking directly at me and my bike. But she simply had no idea that I was there. At least, as I later thought about the problem, I believe she had seen my headlight but had no idea I was as close as I was.
So, why was this? Here is my theory.
A single point of light, which is the Motorbike's headlight, makes the judgement of distance from source very difficult. For example, an experienced road-user, if seeing a car in the distance with its headlights on, has the distance between the left and right light to judge width of the approaching vehicle and therefore the spatial ability to judge distance from source reasonably accurately. This is not true for a single point of light.
Of course, I can hear you say, 'but a motorbike is not just a headlight, it's a large lump of vehicle with a person riding on it,' and of course this is correct. But it is only correct if it can be seen so that road-users can then spatially judge how far away it is because people know how big humans are and roughly how big a motorbike is. But if the headlight dazzles the road-user (even partially) they are no longer able to clearly see the bike or rider and there is then no way for the road-user to accurately spatially judge the distance between them and the motorbike.
I believe this is the problem. So to test this theory, on 6th March 2010 I started riding during daylight hours, with the headlight off. Since that time, on my regular commute, and on other trips, I have covered (to date: 27-July-10) 1025 miles and only experienced 2 pullouts as against an estimated potential 104; an approximate reduction of 98%.
I think that is very interesting.
Of course, there have been studies in America and other countries which suggest that riding with a headlight on is safer. But there never seems to have been a definitive study carried out in the UK, and road conditions and road attitudes in other countries do not translate accurately to this country. Also, headlight positioning on motorbikes is a factor concerning dazzle.
What I have found is not necessarily true for other motorbikes; I can only relate what I have discovered experientially. On these grounds I want to challenge the notion that riding a motorbike with your headlight on is always going to mean that you are going to be safer.
So, if it is not necessarily safer to ride with your headlight on, what can be done to make motorcyclists more visible? Well for one thing, it would help if other road-users learnt to improve their observation. Then the old excuse, 'Sorry mate, I didn't see you', might become a thing of the past.
Co-incidentally, the latest knee-jerk ideology within certain police forces is that bikers need to be more visible and should all wear Hi-Viz at all times.
But it doesn't matter how visible you make yourself if you don't register with other road-users.
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